From “The Navy in the Civil War.”
The chart of Charleston harbor in these days is somewhat misleading to a careless reader of history, because the channel now used by shipping runs straight out to sea, while the channel used in the days of the war is comparatively shoal, and is used by coasters only. In the time of the war a ship bound into Charleston must needs sail in toward the coast several miles south of the harbor, the exact point to be steered for being marked by a tall lighthouse. Arriving within half a mile or so of the beach, the ship turned to the north and followed along the shore of Morris Island, which terminates in a long sandy point called Cumming’s Point, very much like Sandy Hook of New York harbor. Above Cumming’s Point the channel swept away to the northwest until Fort Sumter was reached, when it turned still further to the west, passing Forts Ripley and Pinckney, and then the piers were reached.
The Union warships had to face earthworks from the moment they arrived within range of the tall lighthouse. There were, early in the war, guns at intervals all the way from Light House Inlet to Cumming’s Point, guns laid with muzzles out to sea and commanding the channel along the shore of Morris Island. The chief of these batteries was called Fort Wagner, and it stood on the beach about three miles north of the lighthouse, or say a mile south of Cumming’s Point; but there was another good work (Fort Gregg) on Cumming’s Point, and even before that was passed a ship came in range of Fort Beauregard and Fort Moultrie over on the north side of the harbor (Sullivan’s Island), and, later, of Fort Sumter, on an island midway between the north and south shores of the harbor, and of Fort Johnson, lying on the south side of the harbor. There were other earthworks about the harbor, and the two little island forts of Ripley and Pinckney ought, perhaps, to be considered, although they did nothing of consequence in the fighting.
Battery Brown: Twenty-eight-inch Parrott Rifle.
From a photograph by Haas & Peale.
These forts were armed during the attack made upon them on April 7, 1863, with the following guns that could bear upon the ships: Ten ten-inch smooth-bores, three nine-inch smooth-bores, two eight-inch rifles, nineteen eight-inch smooth-bores, eight thirty-two-pounder rifles, eighteen thirty-two-pounder smooth-bores, and ten ten-inch mortars. No detailed account is given of the landward bearing guns of these forts, but it may be said that the forts on Morris Island and James Island were well fitted to repel troops, while the harbor forts Moultrie and Sumter had nothing of account bearing toward the inner part of the harbor.
In the Charleston Batteries: 300-pounder Parrott Rifle after Bursting of Nozzle.
From a photograph by Haas & Peale.